Now You Can Advertise On Spirit Airlines' Barf Bags For $120,000 A Year

Lots of airlines offer advertising on napkins and boarding
passes, but Spirit Airlines is setting a new standard
for sponsorship.

It is now giving marketers access to the entirety of its planes —
a plane wrap ($400,000 for one plane for the year), window
panels, bulkheads, overhead bins, tray tables, inflight menus,
flight attendants’ aprons, and Styrofoam cups.

Even the barf bags — also known air sickness bags — are available
for branding purposes. An outlay of $30,000 provides the
opportunity of spread your company’s messaging on 150,000 air
sickness bags per quarter.

Skift obtained the Spirit Airlines onboard advertising rate card
(see below for a pricing chart and the gallery above for images
of some of the advertising vehicles), and it is clear that the
self-styled “ultra-low-cost carrier” hopes to generate
advertising revenue from nearly every stationary and moveable
object on the plane with the exception of passengers’ foreheads.

Once implemented, Spirit’s inflight ambiance may come to resemble
subway cars and trolleys where advertising becomes an obstruction
everywhere a passenger gazes.

Before your company shells out $250,000 per quarter (production
and installation included) to run ads on 1,544 window panels in
Spirit’s fleet, consider that Spirit’s customers “skew female,”
are 25 to 54 years old on average, are ethnically diverse, and
their household income averages more than $100,000.

There are plenty of considerations and tradeoffs. For example, is
it more cost-effective to spend $160,000 per quarter to be the
exclusive advertiser on Spirit’s tray tables, or to spend $25,000
for advertising on 1,100 aprons. Do that math, and calculate ROI.

Spirit Airlines is renowned for charging passengers optional fees
for everything from carryon bags and checked bags to boarding
passes at the ticket counter and reservations over the phone.

Now, the pitch to advertisers really rounds out the
revenue-generation picture.

Following are most of Spirit’s onboard advertising rates, and we
imagine they are subject to negotiation.

Spirit Airlines via Skift

The advertising opportunities are boundless. In addition to
taking advantage of “a custom-designed wrap of our Airbus
aircraft,” Spirit mentions that the advertiser can also organize
“an optional media event” for an unveiling ceremony.

And consider the effectiveness of advertising across Spirit’s
window panels; they sure do beat certain traditional forms of
advertising.

Says Spirit of the window panel advertising: “Every passenger
will notice your ad while seated for the duration of their
flight. The recall from these window panel ads is unparalleled by
any outdoor billboard.”